Cooking for 12 on a budget - help?!

johanne · 4 February 2006 at 11:34PM

Im in the process of sorting out the food budget for a scout camp im helping organise coming up at beginnning of april. Were trying to do it for at little as possible as the more it costs - the more the children have to pay!

We have decided on a menu which includes:

Sausage, beans, bacon, eggs or cereal (breakfast x 2 days)
Hamburgers and hot dogs for (lunch - day 1)
Jacket spuds with Chilli or baked beans + cheese (evening meal)
Ham sandwiches + soup (lunch - day 2)
"camp donuts" and hot chocolate (supper x2 nights)

There will be 6 kids and 3 leaders. BUT we will be catering for 3 other adults too. So there will be 12 people to cook for.. using only a camping hob and camp fire!! How oldstyle is that?

:rotfl:

Problem is things like burgers can be costly... as far as were aware at the moment we havent got access to a wholesaler or anything to buy in bulk - but were trying to cash in a few favours to find somewhere

As a back up plan though i need to find cheap sources (shop wise) to get:

40 burgers
40 sausage
48 rashes bacon
2kg Mince
Ham for sandwiches (approx 800g)
Packets of soup
Hot chocolate that tastes lovely for as cheap as possible!
Coffee similar to Nescafe but considerably cheaper!

Also is anywhere cheaper than tesco/kwiksave for the following:

baked beans - 15p
Chopped toms - 17p
kidney beans - 13p
cheese slices - 76p for 12 pack
barms - 28p for 12 pack
hot dog rolls - 38p for 12 pack

I really need to get the bill as low as possible...at the moment its about £55 :eek: I know its realistic BUT............ANY help to reduce this will be much appreciated!! And who better to ask than my fellow oldstylers??

Thanks in advance :T

BWZN93 · 4 February 2006 at 11:50PM

I think I would try a local butcher for all the meat that is needed, put the order in advance so they can prepare it all for you and may well give a discount for bulk ordering and that its for a good cause!!

For the canned goods etc, try Lidl/Aldi/Netto as they are usually a lot cheaper than tesco and much nicer, im not sure of costs though. I dont think they put their prices online either which is a pain, but even if they were the same you would be getting heinz tasting beans for the same price as tesco watery beans.

HTH

Jo xx

Rebob · 5 February 2006 at 12:33AM

Tesco value hot choc is lovely as ds will testify and it is one of the cheapest I have seen....(forgetten the price now. oooops!)

Have you a local meat market as the quality v. price is usually good.

Aldi do packs of bacon which contain 4 packets which is good value and does not shrink too much.

See if burgers are on bogof at one of the supermarkets as this could help.

Sorry no good at remembering prices at the mo.

HTH

Pink. · 5 February 2006 at 12:33AM

Hi johanne,

Tesco value rindless back bacon, 309g for 91p
Tesco value streaky bacon, 275g for 78p

I can't remember the exact price but I *think* the cheapest cheese slices I've seen are in Lidl 30p -40p for 10.

Pink

Curry_Queen · 5 February 2006 at 12:37AM

Lidl do a very nice hot chocolate drink that you just add boiling water to, so that should help keep the costs down. I don't know how much it is as it's a few years since I've bought any, but it was only something like 79p a jar then so probably would be around a pound now if you can still get it

robowen · 5 February 2006 at 12:38AM

aaahhhh!! Takes me back to me yoof !! :rotfl:

I was in the sea scouts as a kid. We went to lake Bala every year for camp.....Magic !!!!!
We had none of this burger and sausages mularky. We had to cook proper food and we had to make a proper oven from the camp fire and a old steel drum covered in grass turves. I earned one of me badges for it !.
No tents...we had to make bivvies out of tree branches and ferns to shelter from the rain.
One of the days..we werent given anything to eat. we had to catch our own dinner from the lake. No fish...no eat ! secretly..we shared if someone caught a few.

I suppose you could have a tuck shop. I'm sure the parents would cough up a little spends. It would help subsidise the food budget :think:

rob

cozzie · 5 February 2006 at 12:53AM

Am just off to bed, so, haven't got ime to check prices, but, might be worth having a look at Asda SmartPrice, taking into account that most stores will allow you to use coupons upto 10% of the value of your shopping. Am sure that a lot of parents will have magazines with coupons in and donate them - It's them that will feel the savings after all.

May even be worth a cheeky phone call to your local store (just to check on their standing re coupons), explain the situation and ask if you could use more or if they would like to donate something. You don't know unless you ask.

Katgoddess · 5 February 2006 at 10:19AM

Morrisons Bettabuy baked beans - 15p
Bettabuy unchopped tomatoes 13p (you can chop them yourself)

It might be worth ringing up your local Morrisons and asking them to donate something? They are always donating prizes to local schools for raffles etc, and are looking for good PR ops at the moment.

The local scouts in my area are always doing bag packs for charity. They stand at the end of the tills in the supermarket in uniform, pack bags for little old ladies etc and have collection buckets. Maybe have 50% go to a local charity and 50% to subsidise scout activities?

PS on Brownie camp we always had lots of (economy?) bread and marge. I always thought this was posh but from reading on here it was to fill you up more. Also parents had to donate cakes for tea.

Lillibet_2 · 5 February 2006 at 10:30AM

If you have time to go to several different supermarkets then check out this site first : www.fixtureferrets.co.uk
They list all the deals in the MAIN supermarkets (lidl, aldi & netto excluded though) But, for example, they are showing that Tesco currently has Princes tinned hot dogs reduced from £1.09 a can (8 in a can) to 54p so £2.70 for 40 nice hot dogs:D
Otherwise I'm sure one of your scouts Mums or the like will have membership to a cash & carry, try putting out an SOS newsletter, Mums will probably fall over themselves to help if it means keeping the cost down & getting the kids off their hands for 2 days! Mackro are usually cheap for these sorts of things although to be honest the quality can be a bit questionable in my opinion (but then I'm not a hungary 13 year old:p)
Remember to include a large bottle of tomato sauce & a bottle of squash;)

Also, don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but I'd add a couple of large bags of apples/bananas or similar for snacks during the day & too keep the vitamin levels topped up. I know it's only 2 days but I still think there is a responsiblity to TRY:rolleyes: & feed them vaguley healthily;) If my child was in someone elses care & not offered a single peice of fruit or veg for 2 days I would not be at all pleased:p:o

HTH & hope you don't take offence;)

Katgoddess · 5 February 2006 at 10:42AM

Lillibet wrote:

Also, don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but I'd add a couple of large bags of apples/bananas or similar for snacks during the day & too keep the vitamin levels topped up.

Economy orange juice in 1l cartons to drink for breakfast. They are around 38p and taste fine. I prefer them to fresh.

HGLTsuperstar · 5 February 2006 at 3:35PM

One thought, have you checked if any of them are veggie/vegan/food allergies etc that need to be catered for?

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Cooking for 12 on a budget - help?!

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